Warren eyes title for Khan

Promoter Frank Warren will go “back to the drawing board” to plan Amir Khan’s route to a world title after the youngster’s impressive victory over Marco Antonio Barrera on Saturday night.

The 22-year-old dismantled Mexican legend Barrera to record a fifth-round technical decision victory in Manchester and atone for his shocking knockout defeat by Breidis Prescott in September.

Khan produced a slick, technically brilliant performance to ensure he was comfortably ahead when the fight was stopped due to a cut above Barrera’s left eye apparently caused by an accidental clash in the first.

Warren had originally planned to set Khan up with a clash against lightweight world champion Nate Campbell before the American failed to make the weight against Ali Funeka last month and was stripped of his IBF, WBO and WBA titles.

But after Khan played his part in getting things back on track, Warren is now able to look at his options.

“The shame of it all is Nate Campbell did not make the weight because that was what we were looking at, but Campbell lost his title and that killed it,” said the promoter.

“I think Nate Campbell would have been a great fight for Amir, I think he would have beaten him and he would have had three belts then.

“But that’s gone out of the window and we’re back to the drawing board.”

Warren added: “We’ll see what’s out there.

“From my point of view I was really just focused on Amir getting through the Barrera fight and then we can see where we go from here.”

Khan completely outclassed three-weight world champion Barrera, who looked every one of his 35 years.

“This was a big fight, it was make-or-break for me because if I lost it, forget about Amir Khan,” he said afterwards.

“I’ve proved to a lot of people how good I am now and answered the criticism I got.”

Barrera had suffered a cut in the first as he took several hard left hooks and a decent right and ended the round with a bad gash over his left eye – close to an old wound suffered in his last fight.

Khan maintained his superiority throughout and when referee Dave Parris asked the ringside doctor to take another look at the wound in the fifth round, the end finally came – with many believing, including Khan himself, he had won with a technical knockout.

However it soon became clear the cut was adjudged to have come from an accidental clash of heads, meaning the decision would come down to the scorecards up to that point – with Khan getting the verdict with scores of 50-44 and 50-45 twice.

Had the fight been stopped within the first four rounds due to the cut, however, the fight would have been declared a no contest.

Earlier on the Manchester card, Nicky Cook’s first defence of the WBO super-featherweight title ended in a fourth-round knockout defeat against unbeaten Puerto Rican Roman Martinez.

Welsh cruiserweight Enzo Maccarinelli was stunned by a spectacular ninth-round knockout at the hands of unknown Ola Afolabi in their fight for the WBO interim title.